To Stop Trump, Democrats Need New #SquadGoals
By Lanae Erickson Hatalsky
Democrats are beginning to rally…but we’re still getting our butts kicked.
To defeat not just Trump, but Trumpism, we need to build a squad.
According to the Cook Political Report, Republicans start with 46 Senate seats that most likely will go to them, compared to just 26 safe blue seats for Democrats. So their squad is already a lot bigger.
Some have argued that demographic changes are ushering in an era of Democratic dominance, causing our squad to grow.
Except…that’s not quite how things have panned out.
While some argued that demographics will equal destiny for Democrats, the party now holds fewer seats at every level of government since any time since Reconstruction.
And all the while, Donald Trump is in the Oval Office going bananas so Democrats have got to assemble a team and FAST.
Waiting for the 23 red states to change demographically to the point where Democrats are competitive could take a very long time…if it happens at all. Just think about what Trump will have done by the end of even four years.
So to build the biggest, toughest squad we can, setting rigid purity tests will only slow us down.
The thing is, Democrats have never been monolithic.
Exit polls showed that even in the 2016 election, the majority of Democratic voters self-identified as either moderate or conservative.
But what about all the new Millennial, Latino, and Asian American voters (what nerds call the “Rising American Electorate”), you ask?
You may find this hard to believe, but none of these groups have an outright majority of self-described liberals.
We’re not. More African American, Latino, and Asian voters describe their ideology as moderate than liberal.
But the Millennials!! They’re SUPER liberal, right?
Actually, even with a major shift in the generation’s views on issues like LGBT rights and climate change, most Millennials still say they are moderates.
And these numbers may change over time. Ideology is not static — even though pundits say on cable news talk like it is.
Many previous generations grew more conservative as they aged. That could happen with the Millennial generation as well.
The support of moderate and even conservative Democratic voters is what helped expand healthcare coverage through Obamacare, and put checks on financial institutions in Dodd-Frank to prevent risky actions from threatening the entire freaking economy.
So those who demand we set liberal purity tests are rejecting the people who have delivered majorities to Democrats in the past.
Diversity is the strength of the Democratic squad — and it’s going to take a lot of different ideas and abilities to rebuild the party.
